Wells Brothers eBook

There was something in Joel’s voice that told
Dell that his brother had not been forgotten.
“And you?—­don’t you?”
stammered the younger boy.

“Mr. Quince picked out a cow and calf for me,”
replied Joel, with a loftiness that two years’
seniority confers on healthy boys. “I left
it to him to choose mine. You’d better
pick out a red one. And say, this hospital of
ours is the real thing. It’s the only one
between Dodge and Ogalalla. This strange foreman
wants to take stock in it. I wonder if that was
what he meant by sawing off a little passel of cattle
on Mr. Quince. Now, don’t argue or ask
foolish questions, but keep your eyes and ears open.”

Fortified anew in courage, Dell accompanied the trail
boss to meet his herd. It was a short hour’s
ride, and on sighting the cattle, then nearing the
crossing, they gave rein to their horses and rode for
the rear of the long column, where, in the rear-guard
of the trailing cattle, naturally the sore and tender-footed
animals were to be found. The drag men knew them
to a hoof, were delighted to hear that all cripples
were to be dropped, and half a dozen were cut off and
started up the Beaver. “Nurse them to the
nearest water,” said Straw to the drag men,
“and then push them up the creek until I overtake
you. Here’s where we drop our strays and
cripples. What? No, I’m only endowing
a trail hospital.”

The herd numbered thirty-one hundred two-year-old
steers. They filled the channel of the Beaver
for a mile around the crossing, crowding into the
deeper pools, and thrashing up and down the creek in
slaking their thirst. Dell had never seen so
many cattle, almost as uniform in size as that many
marbles, and the ease with which a few men handled
the herd became a nine-day wonder to the astonished
boy. And when the word passed around to cut all
strays up the creek, the facility with which the men
culled out the alien down to one class and road brand,
proved them masters in the craft. It seemed as
easily done as selecting a knife from among the other
trinkets in a boy’s pocket.

After a change of mounts for the foreman, Dell and
the trail boss drifted the strays up the creek.
The latter had counted and classed them as cut out
of the herd, and when thrown together with the cripples,
the promised little passel numbered thirty-five cattle,
not counting three calves. Straw excused his
men, promising to overtake them the next morning,
and man and boy drifted the nucleus of a future ranch
toward the homestead.

“Barring that white cow and the red one with
the speckled calf,” said Straw to Dell, pointing
out each, “you’re entitled to pick one
for yourself. Now, I’m not going to hurry
you in making your choice. Any time before we
sight the tent and shack, you are to pick one for your
own dear cow, and stand by your choice, good or bad.
Remember, it carries my compliments to you, as one
of the founders of the first hospital on the Texas
and Montana cattle trail.”